Monday, August 22, 2005

Hunter Goes Out With A Whimper. Or: All Hail The Death Knell Of The Baby Boomers

Nothing says liberal values like a 15 story cannon shaped in the form of a fist on the hilt of a dagger, holding a peyote button. I guess we got so used to Bubba having a revolving door in the Whitehouse for blowjobs, that you have to wonder why anyone would find a cannon with a peyote button being used to shoot Hunter Thompson's ashes in bad taste? Yes, I know the dagger/fist/peyote was Hunter's "thing, symbol, whatever." Anyway, liberals are funny people. I think back many years ago when I spoke to my father about funerals. He made a quip that he'd like to be cremated, and have his ashes spread around the White Elephant Saloonhttp://www.whiteelephantsaloon.com/in Fort Worth. So, when dad passed away, I cremated him per his actual wishes, and interred his remains in a vault in his home town. I did it with the respect he deserved, knowing his comment about the White Elephant was a joke. Of course Hollweird has to make a spectacle of everything they do, so they shoot Hunter Thompson's ashes out of a cannon. The most telling thing about the Hunter Thompson cannon story is what was in the pavilion/food/guest area: Blow-up sex dolls, and caricature masks of former President Richard Nixon hung on the walls.Guests in attendance included: former prez hopefuls John F'ing Kerry, and George McGovern. Liberals, a party of values, right? What a joke.They should have let the guests at this "party" have a little fun. Why not grind Hunter up with a little gun powder and reload him in .45 shells? Everyone could take turns shooting Hunter at the sex dolls and Nixon masks instead of one big blast. Or they could turn the gun on themselves, (John Kerry, are you listening?) just like the coward Hunter was.Finally, for Hunter I say: So long you doped-up, chain-smoking freak, and thanks again for killing yourself. That's one less liberal mouthpiece, and another step toward a better America. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050822/ap_en_ot/thompson_memorial_5
By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer
Sun Aug 21, 8:26 PM ET
WOODY CREEK, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson's grand finale went off as planned: His ashes were blasted into the night sky in an explosion friends and fans agreed he would have loved. But some said the gonzo journalist would have sneered at the Hollywood trappings — champagne toasts by movie stars and former presidential candidates.
Filmmaker Nancy Cohen tried to organize a group of 100 fans outside the gates of Thompson's farm to crash the Saturday night party.
"That's what Hunter would have done," she said.
"This looks more like a fancy dress ball than a memorial for a counterculture icon," said Cohen, of New York, producer of "My Dinner With Abbie," a film about 1960s radical activist Abbie Hoffman.
Crashing the party would have been difficult with the dozens of black-clad security guards who lined the roads leading to the farm.
"It looks like the neighborhood has been invaded by the Viet Cong," friend and neighbor Mike Cleverly said of the guards.
"I am pretty sure it isn't how Hunter would have done it," said longtime friend George Stranahan.
The writer's ashes were fired from atop a 15-story tower modeled after Thompson's logo: a clenched fist, holding a peyote button, rising from the hilt of a dagger. It was built between his home and a tree-covered canyon wall.
The guests gathered in a pavilion next to the platform. Inside were blow up sex dolls and a mask of Thompson's arch enemy, late President Richard Nixon. With drums beating in the background, trays of champagne circulated before Thompson's remains flew.
Thompson shot himself in his kitchen Feb. 20, apparently despondent over his declining health.
The national and most local media were barred from the tribute to the groundbreaking writer who was credited, along with Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, with helping pioneer New Journalism — he dubbed his version "gonzo journalism" — in which the writer was an essential component of the story.
His only son, Juan Thompson, said the hundreds of celebrities, including actors Johnny Depp and Bill Murray, musician Lyle Lovett and former Democratic presidential nominees George McGovern and Sen. John Kerry, wouldn't have felt comfortable with the press around.
Depp, who played Thompson in the 1998 film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," paid for the $2.5 million extravaganza. Depp and Juan Thompson embraced as the ashes fell to the ground.
Juan Thompson told the Aspen Daily News that the ceremony not only fulfilled the vision his father outlined in a 1978 BBC video, but it "was bigger than he ever imagined."
Ralph Steadman, who illustrated many of Thompson's works, had a different take on the extravaganza.
"He'd probably say it wasn't quite big enough," said Steadman. "We want him back. (Saturday night) was a kind of pleading for him to come back. All is forgiven."

5 Comments:

I generally agree with your comments but I'm not so sure I would be so calloused as to thank someone for committing suicide. I understand your cynicism about the liberal left, though. They really are stupid, aren't they?

At least your blog is interesting and meaningful. Most of the others I've seen are mundane and boring:)

As always, I appreciate any reply, whether they agree or not. I guess you have to know me to understand most of what I say here is spur of the moment, gut reaction. It's blowing off steam, if you will, in the "right now."

Believe me, there are many posts I have removed after a while thinking, "Man, how could I have posted that?"

Anyway, I have read much of what Mr. Thompson has written. Some of it is trash, and some is pure genius. What I enjoyed about him was his prose, and the way he had with sentence structure and thought. He dwarfed many of his contemporaries in that respect.

Am I really glad Mr. Thompson committed suicide? No. I believe as I was taught in church that suicide is the ultimate disregard of God and the gift of life He gave to us. I also know there are many that do not believe that, and do it anyway. There was no doubting his talent, but why he would take his life is just beyond my ability to understand. That goes for anyone, not just Mr. Thompson. Many others have written on his last moments: he was drunk, he was depressed, etc… But the fact that he actually did it is what matters. I don’t know Mr. Thompson's state of mind at the end, but suicide, at least to me, is the cowardly way to deal with the greatest asset anyone has.

My complaint, while not spoken but intended, was the left glorifying this man's life through his suicide. That is what irks me the most.

I also took a peek at your blog and must say I am impressed with your thoughts. You have some interesting points to ponder for this Southern Baptist boy.

I was stunned and hurt when I heard about Hunter's suicide. I also read many of his books. I immediately though of Hemmingway, both of these men and many others as well would likely have lived on to produce even better work. Hard drinkers pay a heavy price.